


Tribulation

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A lot of family bonding, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Character Meta, Family Bonding, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I feel pretty safe adding that considering how this story is curently shaping up, Introspection, Langst, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Psychological Torture, Seriously Lance suffers a lot, Slow Build, Substance Abuse, Team Voltron Family, Torture, galra experiments, galra prisoner Lance, half-Galra Keith, hoo boy, mental recovery, road to recovery, so I guess also, there's gonna be a lot of sweet moments in the latter half, uhhh what else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-24 01:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: So he forgot, because forgetting was easier than trying to discern anything from the thread of scrambled thoughts and made up memories that inhabited his brain; he let go and forgot everything and just focused on that shaking, that odd feeling of the walls and floor trembling around him, almost as if something was crashing into the building, again, and again, and again, and then suddenly he could almost hear the crashes, familiar and reassuring in an odd way that told him nothing but he could almost picture it.He could almost picture a huge ship, a lion, like he’d imagined so many times, a long time ago, before he’d lost all semblance of sanity, firing shots and crashing against something, leaving dents and explosions in its wake.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MusicPrincess655](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicPrincess655/gifts).



> Once again, betaed by MusicPrincess665 who's always helping me out and she's amazing, I love you babe, and you'll have to wait on that wine until I manage to actually get a job but for now I'm just really grateful for always helping me with proofreading and sitting with me through brainstorming sessions and all that good stuff.  
> _
> 
> I'll just sake this moment to apologize in advance and state, right here and now, on the record, that I love Lance with all my heart.

How long had it been since Lance’s world had become white?

White rooms after white rooms, always 

white,

so, so much white, everywhere - ever since he had woken up to nothing but white it had been an endless cycle of white and pain, never anything else, never humans nor aliens just 

_white_.

He never, never wanted to sleep but somehow, somehow… somehow he always woke up in new rooms - sometimes tied down to tables, sometimes just tied down, never knowing _when_ he had been moved but at least at those times the machines weren’t **white**. It had become almost a game, picking out the few shades of gray on the machines the best he could before before it became pain - he didn’t like the pain. The pain made everything turn white again.

**_He didn’t like white._ **

At first, he’d used to joke. To tell himself that he didn’t look good in all white, that he’d have to change eventually, but that had been then, and _‘then’_ had been long ago. How long ago? What was day and night when his world was nothing but _white_ , and pain, white rooms and _pain_? 

Maybe he was going crazy, Lance thought. Maybe that was why he was in an asylum.

“Lance…” he whispered, throat aching - there’d been pain, earlier. It had been bad this time. Lance had screamed so much, so much his throat was aching and his voice was raspy. Or maybe that was just his normal voice. Who was he to know.

“Lance…?”

_Oh. That’s me._

“Lance. Lance… Lance, lance, _lance_ ,” he kept mumbling. He couldn’t forget, not that, not his name - he didn’t know anything else for sure, but his name was the one thing he needed to remember. _Why?_ He wasn’t sure. Not like it mattered right now, not in the white rooms. But later, maybe.

***

 _Purple_.

That was the first thing.

How many rooms had he been in before that moment? He’d lost track. He used to count them - whenever he blinked and woke up in a different room, he used to count, but it had become impossible at one point. They were all white, all the same, how could you tell one from the other when they were all the _same_?

Now, finally, he saw Purple. 

**Purple skin**. 

**Purple skin**. 

**_Purple_**. 

Galra. 

That was a galra. 

_That was a galra_. 

He knew that. He knew.

He jumped, tried to cower back from the being, but he was bound, tied up, his body bound together, _immobilized_ \- he could stand, but he had nowhere to run anyway.

 _The Galra_ came.

Grabbed him, grabbed his hair. Lance hissed - tried to pull back, to fight it, but he had never been particularly strong and he was so, _so starved_ \- had he ever eaten anything since coming here? That was an interesting thought. He couldn’t remember food, not really. Only white. He was still alive, though barely - maybe he’d been fed somehow. When unconscious? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t dead. The Galra was still trying to pull him away - and managing. Lance thrashed around, fought back - then, **pain**.

He screamed. Whatever the Galra had done to him, he was laughing blissfully now, holding something - holding a syringe. Wh… Lance had to move, had to run.

He couldn’t.

His body wouldn’t move, not anymore.

He tried.

Then, he cried.

The Galra was still _laughing_. They leaned down, expression morphed in cruel delight, meeting Lance’s eyes as they held _the syringe_ and shot it into him, into his neck, and Lance screamed, screamed like he never had before, as pain erupted as if he was being torn apart from the inside, pain like nothing he’d ever felt before, and everything turned white once again.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
He didn’t like white.

***

It was deathly silent. He was tied up to a table again - everything was bound down, his neck tied tightly, so much so he could barely, _barely_ breathe and he waited - waited for the pain.

He’d picked out four shades of **Grey**.

Lance now knew he was going crazy.

He’d been sure he’d seen a human, earlier. (A doctor?) But he was with the Galra, he knew. Several had come to his - to the white room before, had tortured him, he was with the Galra. There was no way there were humans there.

_maybe there had been humans all along_

His hair was hanging in his eyes even as he lay down. When had it gotten so long? It was brown - faded, dull. But it was **_Brown_**. He hung onto that color.

Something showed up. He couldn’t tell what, tell _who_ \- his vision was blurry. Was he crying? It was the worst, at these times. When the Galra - humans? - showed up. The pain was the worst, then.

He sobbed.

He couldn’t talk, couldn’t plead - his mouth was covered, gagged - all he could do was cry as they fiddled around, wait, wait for the _pain_ , expect it even if he was never - _could_ never be ready for it. And then he’d scream.

***

He was drained. His body seemed to become weaker by the day. He was exhausted, feeling as if the entire weight of the ocean was resting on his body. He probably couldn’t even cower away if he wanted.

They han’t bothered to tie him up. Hadn’t even clothed him, it seemed, but it didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t move. He felt something though. 

Maybe a collar? 

Probably a collar. It was fastened on, tighter than necessary, and he felt sick from where it pressed against his throat. They wouldn’t leave him completely unbound, it seemed. But it didn’t matter, anyway. He couldn’t move.

Lance wondered. He never thought, not anymore, because he didn’t _know_ anything anymore - he only ever wondered. He’d been so lost, **_so confused_**. When his world had become white, he hadn’t known; hadn’t known what to think, what to do. He’d waited - and waited, and waited, and waited, alone, all _alone_ wondering where he was, where he could possibly be, if, maybe, he was in some asylum, wondering all the time. _Was he crazy?_ He couldn’t be.

Voltron would come save him. They would. _His friends._ His friends wouldn’t leave him. They’d come save him. Back then, he’d been sure. But slowly everything else disappeared and only the pain and the white remained, and he no longer knew. Would his friends leave him?

Maybe he was going crazy.

Had he always been crazy?

A giant fighting robot seemed pretty crazy.

**_Could he have been crazy?_ **

If he was in a psycho ward, maybe he was crazy.

Had Voltron ever been real? **Maybe he was crazy.** Maybe he’d made it all up.

If he was crazy, that was possible.

_Giant robot lions were pretty crazy._

But then could there be aliens with him? There couldn’t. Was it all humans?

_Why wouldn’t Voltron save him?_

Maybe he _was_

...crazy

He certainly felt crazy, laying on the floor, whispering his own name, over and over, over and over and _over_ , always faltering, but holding onto the sound of it like a lifeline. Was it his name? Lance.

Lance.

It felt like his name.

But maybe he’d also made that up. Maybe it was in his head. How much was in his head? How much had _always_ been in his head? Had anything ever been real? Maybe it was all in his head.

_...but did it really matter?_

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know, not anything, maybe he didn’t need to, he was driving himself crazy, more and more, **more and more** , crazy, crazy, spinning himself in circles with questions, always questioning, always wondering but _did it really matter?_ The questions didn’t help, they never helped, there were only ever **questions** , and **white** , and **_pain_** , never answers, never anything else. White and pain, pain, _pain_ , and purple, sometimes, but maybe he was making that bit up. Were humans purple? He didn’t think so.

***

Lance blinked. That seemed to be all he ever had to do in order to miss big chunks of his life. Thing. Not life. Not this. This wasn’t life. He was upright. He hadn’t been, before he’d blinked. Actually, he hadn’t been upright for a long time.  
How long?  
He blinked.

 **Green**.

There was green.

 **Green** that was not **white**.

Green.

Almost like the green lion, but not really, not _that_ green. This was different. And he was upright.

He blinked.

It was the light. Awful, awful green light which he’d never been happier to see.

And he was bound. But this was different. 

This was new. 

Good new? New was never good here, but at least it wasn’t **white**. 

He was bound. That was nothing new, but this was different. He was spread out and upright. He was alone. 

Did he have any strength? Probably not. He tried to turn his head, somehow, only a bit. He was drowsy - he couldn’t remember a time ever not being so, so drowsy - but he managed, somehow. He frowned. Half his arm was caught in something. Some machine. It was **grey** , shining weirdly in the green light.  
He hung his head. All his limbs were similarly trapped.

This was new. 

What did this do? He didn’t want to know. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep, wanted it _so much_ , to sleep, forever, if he could, just to escape that place. It felt like that place was all he’d ever known. It felt like pain was the only thing that was real. There’d be pain again, soon. At least he knew it was real. Horrifyingly real.

A second more, and his world became real again.

***

The funny thing is, when you get so used to feeling sick and dizzy, you start to not even notice it until you’re suddenly feeling better. It was like his continuous state of existence was suddenly disrupted, and the world suddenly seemed a bit clearer, and normally that would be good but instead it just felt like too much, like he was suddenly receiving more information, processing things better, and it was more than a bit overwhelming.

He moved his arm and froze. Not because of how much easier it was to move compared to before - but because in his state of undress, for the first time, he noticed the odd, purple blotches on his skin. He gulped, and somehow, exerting amounts of energy he probably didn’t have, he managed to painfully crawl to one of the white walls - the white room, again - and half-lay down, half-lean against it. He pulled his knees to his chest, noticing that he had a pair of the same white cloth pants covering his bottom half, at least, and he was thankful, not wanting to see more of his skin, not now, when he was able to understand, at least a bit, what he was seeing.

Things were suddenly clearer and it was disconcerting. He didn’t know why and he didn’t have the energy to process all the new information his brain was getting. His entire body ached, his skin itched, and he just wanted to sleep, but something was wrong and that was concerning because why would they suddenly let him feel better if there wasn’t anything wrong? He desperately wanted to get up and find out, but his body wouldn’t possibly move, and his mind was still barely functional, considering a little above zero is still far from good - or was this how his mind would normally work? He wouldn’t know, not the way he was, still unsure of what was real, still unable to trust the few memories he was able to bring up among the haze, because he hasn’t forgotten that he’s crazy.

Maybe this is normal for a crazy person. Maybe this was as good as he was ever going to get. The thought was terrifying. He curled up tighter, hugging himself in some half-remembered gesture of comfort. Sitting there, in the corner of the room, unable to create any kind of order in his sluggish, suddenly overwhelmed mind, Lance fell asleep once again.

***

He begged, but that never worked.

He’d given up wondering what _they_ were. Was is all _real_? Probably not. Galras of distorted sizes. Humans that looked vaguely familiar. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore. He just knew that when they came, there was always **pain**.

He tried to beg. It felt like the only word he ever said any more was ‘please’. Maybe it was. But they had no mercy, and he couldn’t get away.

He had the sudden thought that this probably wasn’t an asylum. It was an odd thought. _Why have it now?_ He should have known that for a long time but somehow, he’d never actually thought about that. It was a bit late, maybe. He might as well be in one. He knew he was going crazy. It would still be better than being here.

_his hair was tickling his back_

He always noticed random things like this in the weirdest moments, but maybe it helped take his mind away for a second at a time. His hair had grown out a lot. How long had he been here? He tried to run away from _it_ , whenever _it_ approached, but he couldn’t. He was tied up - always tied up. **“Please. Please, please _please please…_ ”** he chanted, like a mantra, between the tears and sweat marring his ---once flawless skin. **“Please don’t, no, no , _no, no no_ please don’t I can’t _I can’t…_ ”**

 _The syringe_ always hurt the most, and this time wasn’t any different.

Sometime while he was screaming, he blacked out.

***

White.

Just white and white and nothing, nothing else, nothing but him and white and his thoughts, his thoughts which he couldn’t filter, couldn’t control, thoughts driving him

_crazy_

because sometimes they started yelling, screaming in his head, screaming about colors, about blue, and red, and yellow, screaming about lions and friends and things he didn’t know, things that might not even be real, at least not here, not in the white world he lived in, nothing was real here.

Sometimes they just screamed and spun, around and around, screaming about nothing because what had he to even think about, there was nothing, nothing, just him and the _white_ and it was almost worse-

What was worse?

Pain meant he wasn’t alone with his thoughts.

His thoughts which were getting worse and worse - and he thought he could almost grasp onto those moments of coherence, almost remember what they were like, but then his mind slipped and his thoughts spun around again, disjointed words and _**white**_.

With pain-

Pain took over everything. Pain was overbearing, and painful, and his mind went blank and there was nothing else-

And at least, he wasn’t alone with his thoughts anymore, but…

Still, he’s had _so much pain_.

So much white. Just that again, in this room, alone, with silence, and white.

He turned on his side, and, yeah, still white.

But his hair was brushing against his neck, now, and he could see it from the corner of his eye. And his hair was brown.

And when he close his eyes, he almost saw blue.

It was soft, reassuring, and a feeling of calm passed through him, a picture - a blue sky, and a huge lion, and he could feel his eyes watering and there was a call, familiar and soft somewhere in his mind, and he could almost remember it.

***

The first thing he noticed when he gained awareness again was the ground shaking in rhythmic patterns. That was odd. Good? Maybe. Could be good; If nothing else, it was a sensation of something that wasn’t pain, and in Lance’s book, that was already an improvement. He couldn’t tell anything else though, and with that came the second realization.

His head was spinning, his chest was heavy and his entire body was shaking from nausea, but he was halfway coherent. Again.

It was a long time since he was no longer used to that feeling - or, had he ever been? He wasn’t sure; he didn’t know, and his head pounded too painfully to try and drag up half-there memories that he wasn’t sure were real; What was even real anymore, when everything you knew was _white_ and _pain_ and you couldn’t possibly trust that any of your thoughts were real or even your own?

But he was almost coherent, and it was happening more often, more than it was supposed to, and he knew that because he was becoming painfully acquainted with the bitterness on his tongue and his gut churning in that particular way, like old friends that he hadn’t missed a day in his life.

So he forgot, because forgetting was easier than trying to discern anything from the thread of scrambled thoughts and made up memories that inhabited his brain; he let go and forgot everything and just focused on that shaking, that odd feeling of the walls and floor trembling around him, almost as if something was crashing into the building, again, and again, and again, and then suddenly he could almost hear the crashes, familiar and reassuring in an odd way that told him nothing but he could almost picture it.

He could almost picture a huge ship, a lion, like he’d imagined so many times, a long time ago, before he’d lost all semblance of sanity, firing shots and crashing against something, leaving dents and explosions in its wake. Except the sound was loud, and his head hurt, and when he looked up there was _red_ and _purple_ and the sound of crashes and screaming coming from the open door to the room, cell, whatever it was, and someone was standing there. One of _them_. A galra?

A galra.

But he wasn’t standing. He was walking, walking closer with his cruel eyes and his tall stance and Lance was crawling back with whatever strength he managed to bring up. But he had almost none, and the Galra was saying something but all he registered was _that tone_ he knew so well before there was pain.

And his world went white again.

***

He wondered if that brief moment of near consciousness had been a dream.

It certainly felt that way when he’d woken up to once again being tied up and incoherent. But if it hadn’t been real, he wouldn’t be feeling that much worse right now, after being reminded of how it was to feel _a little better_.

 _Purple_.

It was purple light, this time, and he was upright again. He nearly sobbed. Would it ever end? Every time he woke up it _felt_ like years had passed in this personal hell of his, in this hell where it was just him, and _them_ and pain.

They were there this time, too, aligned before him. _This time_ they looked almost **human**. Almost. They were covered by masks though. Maybe not that human - he couldn’t tell, not really. Maybe not that human after all.

They were chanting. Had they been chanting from the start? Why did he only just hear them?  
_no matter_  
All that mattered was that this was going to _hurt_ and Lance was so, so so so tired he didn’t _want to hurt_ anymore, he just wanted everything to stop, but the chanting continued, and Lance sobbed as it started, like electricity travelling his body, except he’d felt that and this was **_so much worse_** because it wasn’t just pain, it was as if his life was being sucked out of him forcefully, as if every word of the ominous chant was getting under his skin and taking everything he had, his life, his energy, his sanity.

He was so tired, so completely exhausted, that not even a scream was able to leave his mouth anymore as he was enduring, tears making their way down his face in thick rivers as a silent testament to his suffering.

***

He’d been left there, suspended mid-air in the purple room. It had been several days, maybe, though he was merely assuming the length of a day at this point, and he hadn’t seen the white room again.

The earlier ritual had been repeated several times and Lance knew that, were he released from the machine holding him upright, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself up, nevermind try to stand. They had taken everything he had and more, and Lance knew that his body wouldn’t stand much more of this. A few times, he’d heard shouting, arguing, but he’d been too exhausted to try and understand what was being said, and as far as he was concerned, arguing meant time spent not torturing him so he was fine with that.

However exhausted he was though, his thoughts felt somewhat less disjointed, less in pieces than he’d been used to. It gave him the chance to just think. About nothing in particular, since there wasn’t much going on in his life, but…. Sometimes, it was nice to imagine. If he had the capability of coherent enough thought process, he liked to imagine - to think about Voltron, think about the paladins, to imagine that it was all real and that somewhere out there, he had friends looking for him, friends who had cared about him.

...Did they, really? Even if it was all a delusion, his muddled brain trying to push him further over the edge, would the paladins even need to look for him? Even back then, he’d thought… maybe the only reason they were keeping him around was because they needed the fifth person. Hypothetically, even if they weren’t all in his head, they’d have no need to look for him when they could easily replace him with someone better. Would they?

Replace him?

They weren’t real, so it didn’t matter, but despite himself Lance nearly left out a disbelieving chuckle. Even in his own crazy delusions, even in his own fantasies, he was useless and replaceable at best. Maybe that stood to show something. Was there a point to even thinking about escaping that place? Not like there was a place for him anywhere else, either.

***

Lance’s entire world was shaking.

Not just his world. The machines holding him were shaking, too, and everything around him. He didn’t really understand why, but in less than one second, everything around him seemed to turn to chaos. Everything was shaking, as if there was an earthquake, or an explosion, or whatever else could make the entire structure of a building - ship? Shake the way it was. Around him, more beings had shown up. Galras, this time, but not only. There were also others. The not-human from before. No humans this time. Weird. The entire room was suddenly full of beings, running around, screaming, working machinery, and Lance was nearly bracing for pain but somehow, this seemed to be different.

“I don’t _CARE_ that you don’t know if it’s ready! They’re all here trying to attack us, and we are not missing this chance!” One of them, one of the bigger ones, was holding another up by it’s throat. All of them looked frantic, desperate.

Heh. Serves them right.

“Get to work and get that thing to function NOW! There’s no excuse to lose those lions when they’re right here! I said _get to fucking work!_ ”

Lions? He said lions, right? He looked Galra, too. Lions. Lions of Voltron. Galras. Lance blinked. Even with his slowly-processing brain, he tried to put those two facts together. Galras. Voltron? Was this another one of his fantasies? He sighed, slumping down as much as possible with his limbs bound the way they were. Another fantasy. Another thing that was only happening in his brain. Would he ever be able to get out - out of his own brain? It was looking hopeless.

Why did it have to happen now? Another fantasy.

Suddenly, he was falling. His limbs were free. It wasn’t for long though - he hit the ground soon enough, making contact with the floor in an eruption of pain for his weakened body. He cried out.

One of them grabbed him, pulled him up unkindly by his hands, binding them together with cuffs - always tying him up, trapping him, binding him. He hadn’t been able to move freely in - how long had it been, again? It didn’t matter. What mattered was where he was being dragged. Quite literally dragged. His hands were still in the thing’s grip, pulling him along, but his body was unable to cooperate, unable to take the steps needed to at least follow the thing - Galra - on his own feet, though not for lack of trying.

Instead his feet ended up hanging down, dragged along the floor as he was maneuvered, and it hurt, but not really, not compared to other things he’d endured. Instead of walking, he watched. He tried to notice everything he could, to gain a semblance of understanding as to where he was being taken and what would happen. The rhythmic shaking of the structure they were in had died down, somewhat, and his head was no longer spinning with every movement of the unstable - building? Ship?

He couldn’t catch sight of anything relevant, not really, not until they’d stopped and by then everything he needed to know was right before him.

A lion.

Now he knew for sure he was in a fantasy again. There was a lion before him. Just like the lions of Voltron, except not really, because where the lions of Voltron had been symbols of hope and peace, this one was different. It was dark, painted in shades of black and purple, and everything about it somehow gave off an aura of darkness and death and even so, somehow, it called out to Lance.

He was thrown brutally to the ground not one second later, the same Galra shouting over his head as he grunted, limp on the floor.

“You’ve got one doboshe to get this one hooked up so move it!” were the words, and move they did. Lance was once more grabbed by one of them, manhandled into the horrific Galran lion by several of the aliens. He tried to struggle, as he always did. No amount of time being their test subject would make him completely submit to whatever the wanted to do. It doesn’t mean it ever worked, though. He was hit, hard, in the gut, causing him once more to grunt in pain. He spit out blood on the floor. He felt tears wanting to flow at the pain, but held them back, not wanting to give them that, give them his tears once again, not after they’d taken everything else from him.

He was abandoned on the ground while they started working on the lion, doing whatever they were doing to it, and he looked up, saw the path, free of aliens - the path to the entrance into the machine. He nearly tried to force his body to move, to crawl himself out if that was all he could do, but it was useless, and he knew it. There were dozens more of them outside, he would never make it. Instead, he let his tensed muscles go limp, laying down and waiting. Even he knew how pathetic it was. He wasn’t even being watched, yet he couldn’t do anything. That was how powerless - how useless he was, just waiting for them to do whatever they wanted to do to him. Not even strong enough to put up a fight.

_there was a small, small voice at the back of his head, screaming at him that that was normal, that he’d been hurt and starved and weakened, of course he couldn’t fight, but he couldn’t hear it over the distant thuds and frantic shouting all around him_

As it turned out, it didn’t take long for them to be done with whatever they were doing, turning their attention back to the exhausted boy doing his best to gain a few more seconds of rest on the floor. They didn’t exchange any words, working meticulously, mechanically, as they moved him around, tied him up, stabbed thick needles or something else through his skin as he screamed. He screamed until his throat was raw once again and then he was once again bound in place by all the machinery, hooked up to cables that drained away at his life and sent sparks through his body and he was once again unable to move, and he managed a bitter smile, because this seemed to be his perpetual state of existence and wow, wasn’t that just sad.

For a few seconds, the lights of the heavy machinery seemed to flicker on and off, and he once again became aware of the unstable shaking of the structure, this time feeling more inclined to attribute it to the explosions he could almost hear in the distance.  
Whatever was happening out there, he was willing to bet it was chaos, and he wasn’t in a particular hurry to join said chaos. Except, you know. It wasn’t really up to him.

Soon enough, he was once again alone.

He didn’t get the chance to ponder for long, though. He couldn’t really tell what was going on, being locked up alone somewhere in the massive lion, but he did hear the telltale sound of a lion getting ready to fly, a sound that he had become able to pick up a long time of learning about Blue and getting used to her.

They were taking off, and Lance had no idea what was happening outside, and it was honestly terrifying. He was trying to pick up anything that could help him figure it out but nothing made it to where he was other than the feeling of the purple lion shaking from repeated hits. Worried did not begin to cover what he was feeling. Anxious was an understatement. He was working himself up with thoughts of what could be happening and how many things could go badly, so much so that it took him longer than was acceptable to realise that it was happening again. He was becoming more and more tired - it wasn’t such an aggressive feeling as he was used to this time around, but it was there, he was being drained of energy and life, gradually but steadily.

Figures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea was sparked months ago and I finally got around to breaking it up in parts and polishing it. The details of what's going on will be revealed in the next chapters. If I keep them to the same length there's probably gonna be two more of them, and I have part of them written already. I promise that I've put a lot of thought into where this is going, and I'll put all my sweat and tears into writing the aftermath of this whole thing and Lance's recovery, so hopefully I haven't scared anyone off and you'll stick with me through this ride.
> 
> Feel free to come scream at me on my [tumblr](http://i-write-midnight-snacks.tumblr.com) for this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The sky kept him company. Somehow, he didn’t feel alone through it. The blue looked so much more real and vivid than it had all those times he had tried to picture it in his mind while everything was white, and he was feeling a presence, soft and familiar and reassuring, a presence that he could almost remember feeling, once, while he was in his world of **white**._

Haze.

Darkness and purple and a faint light.

For a second, Lance thought he saw them. There was a door, and light, and people who looked almost like them- he could almost make them out, their faces, _their colors_ ; but it was hazy, and then the world went dark around him.

***

Warm.

“... should let me take him, Keith…”

He felt warm.

He hadn’t thought about that in a long time; his limbs had been numb for so long, he’d forgotten that he could feel warmth like that.

He felt movement.

Touch.

Drowsiness. He was hearing something faint, but the world was dark and his brain was muddled, and he was warm, _safe_ , he was close to something warm, _held close to something warm_ because those felt like arms around him, and for a second, it felt safe.

“...et him into a healing pod as soon as possible... everything else...” there were voices and other faint sounds and he was warm, and then he wasn’t anything and the world disappeared again, but it was alright because it was safe.

***

Light.

He had the vague feeling of safety still engraved in his memory, and it was still _warm_ , so warm and comfortable, and he wanted to sleep but now there were _sounds_ and there was _light_ and his eyelids were heavy and closed but it still kept him up, hurt his eyes after all the darkness, and _he wanted to go to sleep_ , sleep forever if he could, even more than before because now he was _warm_.

But then there was movement, and he wanted to open his eyes but his head pounded and his eyelids were lead, and the warmth was slipping away-

And then, everything went **cold**.

***

Cold.

He was cold again, cold that seemed to surround him, going down to his bones and freezing every bit of his body, and then suddenly he _wasn’t_.

There was light again, and he was not-cold, and he could open his eyes - and then he was falling. There was a room around him - a not-white room - and there was warmth again, and he realised that someone had caught him - weird - and he hadn’t fallen, hadn’t hit the ground with the painful crash he had come to expect. There was black and grey before his eyes and he was almost coherent again. That was weird, because a second ago he was cold and his mind was numb, and suddenly he could think and the world wasn’t black.

He felt himself being moved again, sat down on the ground. Then the warmth left and he was sitting against the healing pod in the castle, and he could blink, and though his arms were limp and useless, and his legs were numb, his body _wasn’t sore_ and it was disconcerting, because he’d always been sore, at every point in his memories, no matter what.

Held breaths were released all around him, and he could hear more people than he’d grown used to seeing all at once on most days, and then a voice, warm and familiar but long lost somewhere in the maze of his memories. “Lance-” 

Then, a word. A name that his mind provided.

Hunk.

He remembered then the moments before the whole thing had started, when the galra had said they were being attacked, and everything was chaos, noise and movement and shouting, so much shouting, and he remembered that he had thought - against all odds - that Voltron was coming. Even so, he couldn’t mask his shock at finding himself surrounded by them, by the paladins, all of them right there around him, looking down at him with unbelievable concern in their eyes.

He looked around at all of them, taking everything in. He had come to accept that none of this was real but even so, in all those days of pain and solitude, the only thing he had wished for was this - to be with his friends once more. He’d been convinced that he’d never see them again, though, and he was equally numb with disbelief and overwhelmed with emotion at finding himself here again.

And now they were there, and they were different, he thought, but maybe they weren’t because really, his memories were a blur - but they seemed different.

Shiro was the closest to him, crouched down, holding out a hand as if to stop the others from getting any closer. Hunk was right next to him, looking down at Lance with eyes that spoke of how worried and afraid he was for his friend, and Lance almost smiled, despite himself.

They were all there.

All gathered around him, even Coran and Allura.

“Lance? How are you feeling?” Shiro spoke, voice softer, so much softer than Lance was used to hearing, to having directed to _him_.

He turned his attention to the man again, studying his face, his eyes, his hair, trying to take in every detail, to remember them when all of this would fade away once again and all he would have would be his memories of this dream.

Then, after a few seconds, he relaxed, smiling in a way that made everyone flinch, pain shining in their eyes. He chuckled. 

“Of course this would happen again…” he spoke, causing the others to share confused glances. His voice sounded raspy, silent compared to the past self he could remember, his words came out slowly, as if he needed to think about how to tie words together, and to remember each word before speaking it, and his throat ached, but still, he spoke. “Why now?” he asked, but the question was directed to nobody but himself.

“Lance?” Even Keith sounded concerned, he noted.

“... It’s nothing.” With those words, he let his smile fall and his eyes close.

The room went silent once again, and Lance almost wished that it hadn’t, because he’d had silence to last him a lifetime, and if he was going back there than at least for now, he wanted to hear familiar voices.

He didn’t hear them, but he heard footsteps instead, and he nearly cowered back. He was backed up against a pod, though, and this was all probably just in his mind, anyway.

Arms circled him, thin and warm and shaking, and Lance flinched. His eyes opened to look down. He could hear the others taking deep breaths, and he could feel their eyes fixed on him, but his own were fixed on Pidge’s form next to him, holding him close,

_and they were holding him so tightly that it was almost painful, but they were **warm**_

burying their head in his shirt and shaking with silent sobs.

He nearly hesitated, but the picture broke something inside of him, and a second later his own arms were struggling to find the strength to circle against his friend, his head lowered and, hunched over them-

Lance **cried**.

He didn’t know if he would ever be able to take it when all of this would fade away again. Losing Voltron the first time had been almost more painful than everything he’d been put through the previous weeks - months - years? He was hugging Pidge as best as he could - which was barely at all, because his arms cried out with the strain of simply being moved - but he was holding them, and he didn’t want to have to let go, not ever.

Then another pair of arms were wrapping around both of them, almost like a protective shield, and Lance cried harder. Pidge’s sobs were getting worse, and now Hunk was crying, too, and Lance didn’t want to leave that embrace, because it was warm, and safe, and the world outside was anything but.

***

_Shiro nearly smiled. He gave a knowing look to Allura and Keith, who were fidgeting and biting their lips and holding back._

_It seemed they were all on the same page._

_This moment belonged to Lance, and it belonged to Pidge and to Hunk, who had known him the longest. Everyone else would get their moment later._

***

Soft.

For the first time in a long time, Lance was sitting against something soft, and it was comfortable, and warm, and he would never take that for granted again.

Shiro had brought him a blanket and pillows to sit on, at some point, and it felt soft and comfortable and warm, and the oppressive silence surrounding the room almost seemed not-so-bad.

They were still in the med bay, everyone perched around him on the stairs in front of the healing pods. Their stares were all charged with feelings - so, so many feelings, weighing so heavily on his shoulders and overwhelming Lance to the point that he felt paralyzed, but he couldn’t find it in himself to begrudge them that.

He probably would have stared, too, if he was suddenly faced with someone who looked as bad as Lance probably did at that moment.

His eyes still stung from crying, and he was sure that his face was red and blotchy, but at least nothing else hurt and he almost, _almost_ felt rested after probably being in the healing pod for days - but not quite, not really, because his mind was still so, so tired that he wasn’t sure he ever _would_ feel rested again.

His gut churned, though, from nerves, and hunger, and nausea, and even though Hunk was supposed to bring food, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to eat any without vomiting everything as soon as it reached his stomach.

He waited for minutes, and then waited some more, but nobody broke the deafening silence, and soon it would get too much. His thoughts would spiral again, and he’d been alone with his own thoughts for too long,

he had thought everything he possibly could, and then thought it again, and he had nothing left to think about

\- nothing that he wanted to acknowledge. So he gathered his strength, and raised his head, and tried to say something, anything just to break the silence. But no words came out, because, really, what could he possibly say?

“Lance, are you alright?” Allura asked, then she cringed, and Lance could understand why. He nearly laughed, too, because he doubted that any part of himself looked to be ‘alright’ right now, but the thought was too bitter to laugh. He managed a smile, though it might have been a grimace. He swallowed, tried to make his throat work, and then spoke again.

“How… how did you guys find me?” he asked. His voice cracked, barely above a whisper as it was, but those were actual words, and wow, wasn’t that a thing; those were _actual words_ , and he hadn’t said so many real words in such a short timespan in _so long_ , it was almost nice. 

Eyes shifted around the room, and suddenly the others were once again looking at him with an emotion that he couldn’t quite name. There were awkward mumbles passing around, a few ‘Well, you know’s , but mostly there were just several voices stumbling over each other to speak, uncertain and reluctant, and Lance could barely make out any words but they were all getting louder, and his head pounded and his body was frozen and his thoughts were screaming that he had started this - this chaos, with his dumb question - Then, Pidge broke through with a cough, and everyone was silent again.  
“What these idiots are all _trying_ to say is that that’s a long story, and we’d rather have that _particular_ discussion once you’ve recovered a bit more.” Their speech was stunted and articulated, and even though they were staring pointedly at the others, Lance couldn’t help a slight wave of nervousness from surfacing.

Their next words were more gentle, though, and this time Pidge was looking at him once again as they spoke. 

“There’s a lot that we’d all like to say, but all of us are tired, and we’re just happy that you’re back. Even though we’ve had a lot of help from the Blade of Marmorra…” Their eyes shifted to the ground, and with all the pain that Lance had been through before, he still hadn’t been quite ready for the pain of having Pidge before him, looking so sad and hesitant and _defeated_ , nothing like the strong, cocky teenager from his memories. “Well, it’s been a long year.”  
The world went silent, and for a few seconds Lance stared at Pidge.

His heart was suddenly pounding and his stomach was churning with nausea; then, adversely, the sounds around him seemed to become loud, so, so much louder that Lance wasn’t sure that it wasn’t all in his head, deafening and sudden and charged with so many sensations and memories - the faint buzz of electronics, _the grey of the pods_ , the sounds of shuffling clothes, _the **white** of the blanket_ , the sounds of footsteps, _the pain of a kick_ , as the others stood up, tense and waiting for a reaction.

But he had none to give.

**One year.**

Had it really been that long?

For how long had he been in space before that?

_how long since he’d last seen earth, was what his mind was actually screaming to know_

Could he even trust any of this? Was there any point in even worrying about all this?

This was too much. All the sounds, and the feelings, and the thoughts, clashing together and making a mess of everything again, and wasn’t that just pathetic?.

So he went for something different.

“Can you… help me get to a window?” he asked. “I want to see the outside.

***

If there was a sob or two from his friends, then Lance was willing to ignore it.

***

_Blue._

The world outside was blue, just beyond the large window of the castle. It was still, just like the room he was in - white, but not quite, it was more of a grey, and there were soft, blue lights shining all around him - alone, with the blue sky and the smell of food; and he had food, actual food, could you believe it? The smell of it was sharp and intense and his stomach was tightening painfully with nausea, and Lance loved every moment of it, because he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt a smell _(besides that of blood)_.

The others had been silent as they’d carried him over before leaving him on his own to enjoy the sight of the sky, ( **blue** and _real_ and so beautiful ) and think through things - **if only they’d known that thinking was all he’d been able to do for the past year** -, not without promising to be back soon to keep him company.

On the way, he got the distinct feeling that the warmth of Shiro’s arms around his body felt familiar, and he tried not to focus on how pathetic it was that he couldn’t even hold his own weight on his feet anymore, but instead remember the moments of near-consciousness from before waking up in the pod; the arms holding him had felt the same back then, wrapping around his torso and beneath his knees with a strength that felt distinctly _safe_.

It was odd, though, that all of this felt so much more real and vivid than any other hallucinations he’d had before.

He was feeling so much - the smell of food, filled with spices he couldn’t name, the oddly soft texture of the rug beneath him, the soft lights inside the Castle of Lions, the warmth of a familiar place - but then, it had felt that way the first time around, too, so he wasn’t sure what to think about all this.

So he didn’t think.

Instead, he ate - an explosion of taste that felt stringent and harsh after such a long time, but it was food, and he was so much more hungry than he’d ever realised, and it was _Hunk’s food_ , so he **ate** because he had missed it so much.

The sky kept him company. Somehow, he didn’t feel alone through it. The blue looked so much more real and vivid than it had all those times he had tried to picture it in his mind while everything was white, and he was feeling a presence, soft and familiar and reassuring, a presence that he could almost remember feeling, once, while he was in his world of _white_ , but it couldn’t have been, because he couldn’t have possibly felt Blue there, so it had to have been his imagination, trying to keep him on the floating line.

Blue.

The skies and water back on earth were blue, too, he thought.

How long had it been since he’d even thought about earth, about _home_?

Home didn’t exist in his world, though. Even now, it felt like a memory of a dream, one that seemed almost tangent in _this_ world, but not in his; not in the white world that made up his existence, and where everything else felt far and disconnected.

_Home didn’t exist in his world_.

***

Cloth.

Soft and clean silk that smelled like soap and touched against his skin pleasantly, hiding all the marks on his body. Lance was grateful for the change of clothes, more than he could express. They were blue - They weren’t _white_ , but Blue! - and they fit him and they hid away everything that Lance knew was hiding just beyond that layer of cloth, shielding him from the implications.

_even so, it couldn’t hide the dark reality of what he’d seen that day in the white room and Lance wouldn’t be able to pretend forever_

He was in the control room, sat awkwardly in the seat that was once so familiar for him. The surface was hard, but somehow it felt warm against his back, and he fit snuggly onto it with his knees drawn up and his eyes focussed on the world outside.

He knew what the chances were that the others all had to work on the main deck, and he knew that it was most likely a pretense to be around him, but he was grateful for their efforts, even if his focus was on the sky beyond the castle.

_Surreal._

Was that the right word?

What he was feeling seemed a lot more aggressive, eating away at the threads of his sanity with questions that could never be answered. It had been such a short time since he had woken up in the healing pod, after all, and it felt like only seconds before that he was bound in a dark perversion of his lion, of Blue, his world nothing more than white rooms and pain.

Blue.

It was still there, so familiar yet so foreign, almost forgotten but not quit - the bond between them that settled like a new presence somewhere at the back of his mind, feeling more right than anything else in this odd reality.

“Blue…” Everyone else flinched, but their attentions were on him now, and his voice cracked, but he still managed to get the words out. “Where’s Blue?”

Because he needed to see his lion. She was calling for him. Her voice faint but somehow, _somehow_ it overshadowed any other thoughts, like a whisper that echoed with a disrupting presence in his mind, except so much more gentle than that; _you need to see her, you need to see her, you need to see Blue_ and he knew that until that happened, until he was reunited with his lion, he wouldn’t feel complete.

Lance’s sight zeroed in on Shiro, pleading and desperate, and Shiro’s eyes, so sad and solemn, seemed to speak of a million truths that Lance couldn’t make sense of.

“Please.”

And Shiro nodded.

Everyone else looked on with worried gazes as Shiro helped Lance stand up on legs that were too weak, his frame tense with apprehension, almost like he was afraid to touch Lance, afraid that… That what? Lance didn’t know.

But still, they walked, moving slowly, half-crawling towards Blue’s hanger. Every movement hurt, and it felt as if they’d never make it there, as if the distance between him and his Blue was so long that he’d never get to see her. He was almost afraid, when the hangar door opened, that she wouldn’t be there, and instead a white room would wait on the other side, and he’d turn around only to realize that the world was white again, and that for once, he had been right.

Maybe this was worse, though.

Because if Shiro weren’t holding him, Lance would have fallen - he did fall, his knees giving out completely, but at least Shiro helped lower him down gently until he was on his knees, looking at the sight of his Lion on her side on the floor of her hangar, with missing pieces of her surface gathered together in a pile next to her, and he could see the wires sticking out from her, and-

And Lance sobbed. 

She looked broken, her color chipped away, _her blue, chipped away everywhere_ from hits and damage, she was unresponsive and Lance could barely feel her presence, nearly forgot he could, but it was still there, and he almost felt a purr, before he slumped down, with defeat or relief, or maybe both.

“Lance, we’re sorry.” Allura said, but that didn’t tell him anything other than the fact that Blue was laying broken on the ground before him and there was nothing he could do.

“She hasn’t responded at all, not since we got both of you back.”

Hunk’s voice brought with it a grim revelation.

Lance was brought back to that one time on the floor of the **white room** ; for a second, he remembered that flash of _blue_ he had seen, clearer than any other hazy thoughts he’d been able to conjure up; he remembered the familiar pull, and he remembered thinking that it was his imagination. But if Blue had been with him, then maybe, it hadn’t been; maybe Blue had been subjected to just as much as him, so close to him all that time, and he hadn’t even realized it for so long.

“We’ll fix her, though.” Pidge jumped in. “Now that we’ve got her back, Hunk and I can work on putting her back together; she’ll be like new.”

Lance nodded, wiping away the fresh tears in his eyes and looking at his girl, wanting to get closer, to be next to his lion even if he had to crawl over there.

Which he did. His limbs screamed with the effort but he tried his best to make it over. Until he was stopped, that is, and he looked up to find Shiro helping him stand up once again. 

“Hey, let us help you.”

He smiled.

So Lance did, leaning into Shiro’s side once more, pushing down the feeling of inadequacy that was struggling to surface again, telling him that he was pathetic, useless, that he couldn’t even do this much, if only because it was so, so so so much more important to get to _Blue_.

She was so close, and when he reached her-

_with Shiro’s help_

-it was all he could do to stop himself from collapsing against her, because it was Blue that needed _him_ , right now.

_he needed her, too, though; he was in pieces, and she was a part of him, too, one that was right there, and he needed her, too, if he were to ever start putting the pieces back together, so maybe it was alright if they both needed each other_

So he sat next to her. Shiro stepped back, and then Lance forgot about the others, forgot all about the world waiting for him, because what mattered was Blue, and him, and the feeling of calm that filled him from where his hand had touched the cold metal of her nuzzle. And it was such an odd feeling, because his girl had never been cold; there was always a warm energy emanating from her which had shielded him, made him feel safe in the past.

And when her screens turned on and she looked at him,

_the others had gasped in the background, but in that moment, none of that mattered_

she still couldn’t move, and she was still cold, but that was alright because so was Lance and at least now, they were next to each other.

***

That night, Lance fell asleep curled up against his lion.

***

_White._

His eyes ached and his head pounded and the world was white again, and Lance had to stop, to think-

There had been blue before, and grey, and green, yellow, black, pink, colors, colors that he knew - he could name every color, picture each one and it had been so real, so vivid; he had almost hoped - almost allowed himself to hope, but then he had slept, and now it was all white again-

white,

_White!_

White walls, a white ceiling,

And Lance almost screamed because he knew, he’d known, he’d been prepared for this, so why,

why,

why did it hurt so much?

_everything was White again_

The blue was gone-

-and Blue was gone, and so Lance did scream because now that world was gone again, and his friends were gone, and he was alone, all alone, all on his own, again, again, again, and he’d barely even heard their voices, and seen their colors, he’d been _there_ and he’d missed it all.

And now, it was just him, and white-

And tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry?  
>  _Feel free to come scream at me on[tumblr](http://i-write-midnight-snacks.tumblr.com)_


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